


Lyubertsy Aches

by Wintervention



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Doping Ban, Emotional Hurt, Inspired by Fanfiction, Moscow, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22053109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wintervention/pseuds/Wintervention
Summary: Months after admitting to a career spent on performance enhancing drugs, Viktor finds himself in a cold and crumbling apartment in Moscow. Here, he lays witness to an unintended consequence of his confession, and attempts to make things right.
Relationships: Victor Nikiforov & Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	Lyubertsy Aches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts), [Nineveh_uk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nineveh_uk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [marginal gains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8792833) by [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht). 



The dying days of the summer months find him in the hallway of a crumbling Khrushchyovka building buried deep within Lyubertsy. It stinks of piss and burnt sheets of tin foil and the mould which grows in every corner. The elevator, its doors twisted and warped, is out of order. The soles of his shoes stick on each linoleum step he takes up to the Plisetsky apartment. He’d been here once before, when the layer of paint covering graffiti tags was still fresh, and there were no leaflets inviting the buildings residents to a discussion surrounding a potential demolition posted on each door. He couldn’t remember why, and he certainly couldn’t remember which apartment out of the thousands of identical buildings within the borders of Moscow it was. But whatever the feeling deep inside him was that pulled him towards the city also had the foresight to remind him of the files buried deep within his old, ‘professional’ email account- now defunct- which had every detail he needed.

So here he stands. There’s no brass numbers on the door, but the faded shape of the digits in the cracking blue paint remains. The frosted glass pane at the apartment’s entrance is cracked but not shattered. The hinges are rusted. The light strips above him flicker. He keeps his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket, and considers walking away again. The taxi that abandoned him here won't take long to get back, to whisk him away to the airport and deposit him safely back on a flight to Japan so that he can live out the rest of his life never having to think a single word in Russian again. But he doesn’t. He lifts his arm, and knocks.

A lifetime later, the door swings open. Viktor’s chest seizes at the sight.

Dull green eyes, dry and reddened and sunken into bags of grey skin. Lank strands of straw hair poking out under an oversized black hood. Painfully delicate legs. Eyebrows with patches missing from their arches. Cracked lips.

He sees a lot more than he had expected to before the door comes flying back towards him, with a slam that rattles the whole building. Another follows, the boy throwing his entire weight against the other side. It’s not much, and the noise is barely there, but Viktor still, just barely, reaches his arms forward to stop Yuri breaking his back against the wooden slab. Instinct. 

He’s not welcome here. Why would he be. He’d sworn he’d never step foot on Russian soil again, at least not for much longer than the time it has been. The linoleum turns to concrete and swallows his feet where he stands, staring at the door, begging silently for it to open.

“Viktor.” 

Nikolai comes to the door next. The shock in his eyes quickly turns to a look of serene distrust as he looks Viktor up and down. He blocks the space between the door and its frame, and while Viktor is taller than the man, he cannot peer around to see if Yuri is lurking somewhere behind him. Even if he isn’t, he will no doubt hear whatever his Grandfather has to say to the unwelcome visitor- the apartment is small enough. 

“I know I should have been in touch sooner- I’d like to speak to Yuri.”

He dips his head slightly, hoping humility will win over the man stood opposite him, and that he’ll be invited into their even more humble home.

“I don’t think Yuri wants to speak to you.” the elder says, face still plain and emotionless.

“I know. I understand, really. But there are things I need to say to him face to face.”

Nikolai looks him up and down again, his gaze only now hardening as he considers Viktor. He catches the younger man’s eyeline, and has him ducking his head again to avoid the strangely familiar green glare.

“Yes, there are. You may come in.”

The door opens wider, but only barely, and Nikolai leads Viktor only a few steps forward through a tight corridor to the kitchen, where Yuri sits at a fold-out breakfast table staring down at a pile of papers, pencil in hand. The room is dark despite the midday sun, cabinets extending forward to cover the small window. The walls are yellowed and aged. Yuri ignores his presence, until Viktor dares to speak.

“Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

“No.” Yuri spits, hood obscuring his frustrated expression.

“Be polite, Yuratchka. Viktor has come to apologise.”

Apologise is not the right word, at least not in the traditional sense. Explain, perhaps, but even that feels like a stretch. It’s not worth correcting the elder man, so he doesn’t. Nor does he look at Yuri. He feels enough of an intruder simply scanning the tiles along the wall behind the stove, nevermind watching the boy tremble in his seat. He almost asks Nikolai to stay, a chaperone to prevent the explosion of emotion building within the boy.

“I’ll be in the next room,” he states before walking away, closing the door behind him, and the lounge door after that. Viktor is convinced he knows what is about to occur, and is protecting himself from it, preparing the clean up the inevitable fallout. He doesn’t have time to brace himself before Yuri is slamming his pencil down on the table and standing with such force that his chair falls and clatters behind him.

“Why are you here?” he snarls, barely restrained.

“Yura-”

“Just tell me why you’re here.”

“I’ve come to make things right,” Viktor states, suppressing a shake.

“Make things right?” Yuri does tremble, his voice growing more wild by the second. “You ruined everything.”

“I did what I had to do, Yura.”

“Don’t call me Yura. Do you not realise what you’ve done?”

“I don’t have a career anymore. My life is over. I don’t have any money. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

He reaches forward and grabs the papers, shoving them towards Viktor’s face and scaring away the elderly cat who jumps down and cowers under the table with none of the usual feline grace.

“I don’t have an education. This is the shit they give to eleven year olds and I can’t even do it.”

He pulls them back, hugging them into his body in a rare show of vulnerability in and amongst the vitriolic tone of his tirade. His eyes, hard with suspicion, begin to glisten with tears. He must be close to collapse now, Viktor thinks, waiting out the end of the storm with a pounding heart and the unwelcome feeling of guilt pooling in his stomach.

“People don’t talk to me anymore. Mila doesn’t _need_ to talk to me. Otabek doesn’t want my existence to _incriminate_ him.”

Viktor’s heart clenches as the boy takes a shuddering heave of a breath. He looks away for only second, seeking support from the cat sheltered under the table, before looking back at Viktor with a glare so full of raw hatred and accusation that he almost starts to believe he deserves it.

“You ruined _everything_.”

“How long did they give you?” Viktor murmurs when it seems as though Yuri has no breath to speak anymore.

“Three years. Pending investigation,” he swallows in reply.

“So you might get less?”

“No. I might get more.”

“Still- you’ll barely be into your twenties. You’ve got plenty enough time to make a come back after it’s all over, if you continue training in the meantime.”

“Where am I supposed to train- here in Russia? So they can drug me up again?”

“Come to Japan,” Viktor offers, a note of apology in his voice.

“What?” Yuri snaps after a moment’s hesitation.

“Yuuri and I may not have the best reputation. But there are plenty of rinks in Japan, plenty of coaches.”

The nervous look on Yuri’s face has Viktor thinking that the boy might just accept his offer. Redemption, to a degree.

“How am I supposed to pay for everything?”

“You can stay with Yuuri and I while you’re there. Don’t worry about coaching fees, we’ll sort something else.”

He looks away again- at the cat, at the stove, at the door, at anything other than the man stood opposite him. Despite this, Viktor still sees the way his lip quivers and neck tightens, green eyes shining wet again.

“It’s not just the fees. How am I supposed to pay for all this?” he croaks, vaguely gesturing to the crumbling walls surrounding them.

“We nearly got cut off from the gas the other day. Dedushka is already sick, and now he’s dealing with that because of me.”

“Sick? Is he alright?”

Yuri shakes his head, swallowing, scrunching his homework up in his fists.

“His heart is really bad. He needs meds, hospital visits. He might even need surgery. And I haven’t got any way to pay for it.”

He throws the sheets of paper back down on the table. Viktor sneaks a look over at the lines and numbers which decorate them, uncomfortable with watching the boy as he chokes on his words, and as tears begin to trail down his pale grey-skinned cheeks. He doesn’t say anything about the fact that his own mathematical ability never went any further than clumsily calculated point values in his head after the rare failed jump. He does look back up at the boy with an expression meant to show some level of support and understanding. Yuri doesn’t take it as such.

“I need to study, and get a real fucking job. I can’t spend the next however many years training for nothing, Viktor. Don’t fucking pity me. None of this would’ve happened if you’d just kept your mouth shut. But I guess it’s fine, since your career was already over anyway.”

Viktor doesn’t know if Yuri is talking about his age, or the way his knees crack and shift in their sockets when he walks, the thinning of his hair not solely from being old, even the tiniest amount of weight he’d gathered during his extended break to coach the boy’s Japanese namesake. Whichever one, he acts as though it doesn’t hurt as much as it does. Yuri is coming close to exhausting himself again, and he doesn’t want to give him a reason to continue the attack.

“Listen, Yura,” Viktor starts, finally having gathered the courage to speak without letting the teenager interrupt him.

“I’m not going to say what I did was wrong. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not sorry for what has happened. You deserved so much more than what they did to you- to us. I really think you should consider it. This doesn’t need to be the end.”

“Get out.”

And when Viktor fails to immediately be out of the apartment and down the street, Yura breaks into hysterical cries, and screams,

_“Just get out!”_

Nikolai is waiting for him in the hallway.

“I hope you mean that. About getting him back on the ice,” he rasps.

In the dim light of the apartment’s entryway, Viktor can see the toll that the situation has taken not just on the boy who had lost a career before it had ever really started, but also on the small family now missing a breadwinner. The situation that he’d caused- for better or for worse. On the other side of the kitchen door, Yuri’s sobs rage as he slides down the wall and curls up beneath the windowsill.

“Of course I do. He could’ve been great- he still can be great. I just wish there was more I could do for him without sabotaging him further,” he swallows, looking down at the carpet. The black leather of his shoes shines brighter now against the threadbare faded brown beneath his feet.

“Yes. Because I think you’ve already sabotaged him enough.”

Viktor bites his lips, unsure of what else to say.

“I’m going to be in Moscow for the rest of the week. If Yuri wants to speak to me at any point, I’ll be there for him. After I leave too, he just needs to call me. Here’s my number- just in case.” 

He hands over an old card tucked in his jacket pocket and intended for this moment, which Nikolai takes with some reservation.

“I think it’s time you left.”

Viktor couldn’t agree more. He opens the front door, and closes it behind him just as Nikolai opens the door to the kitchen to comfort his grandson. Standing in the stairwell, surrounded by graffiti and stains, broken glass and used needles, it finally strikes him just how young and vulnerable the tiger truly was. He knew the confession would have consequences- for Yuuri, and for himself. But now, having come face to face with the true consequences, the feeling of regret starts to eat away at him. He shouldn’t have come here. His throat feels dry as he continues to walk away. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for Yuri on Ice in over a year but you know we stay topical. Inspired by 'Marginal Gains' by Naraht, written as a gift for Nineveh_uk. I haven't been able to get this idea out of my head since I first read it, so I hope they don't mind me posting this.


End file.
